The use of mobile technologies is steadily on the increase, for both business and personal uses. Mobile phones are a common site today and many people own personal information management (PIM) devices, palmtop computers, and so forth, to manage their schedules, contacts, and to stay connected with friends, family, and work. Employees on the move often appreciate the value of staying connected with their business through their mobile devices.
With such a variety of mobile devices, one can receive email messages, Instant Messaging (IM) messages, and Short Message Service (SMS) text messages, in addition to regular voice calls. Recently, the use of SMS and other forms of text messaging has become very popular. But of this popularity may, at least in part, be attributed to the use of short codes by various mobile marketing activities.
Briefly, short codes are typically short strings of numbers or characters to which a text message may be addressed and includes a common addressing scheme for participating wireless networks. Short codes are designed to provide a way to deploy interactive mobile data applications, including voting, polling, “text and win” contests, surveys, focus groups, direct marketing, live chats, games, and the like. Currently, there are at least two types of short codes, including random short codes and vanity short codes. Random short codes include those numbers that may be randomly assigned, usually within at least some constraints, while vanity short codes are those selected based on a business requirement, such as for brand recognition, or the like.
Short codes may be employed by different network carriers to indicate different applications, different services, or the like. Moreover, different network carriers may use a different number of short codes, be assigned non-contiguous blocks of short codes with extensions within a range of short codes with extensions, or the like. Moreover many short codes may be assigned, and/or re-assigned for a given network carrier. Managing of short codes based on differing policies, network carriers, and the like, may sometimes become very complicated. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.